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      Coinbase Says S.E.C. Will Drop Crypto Lawsuit

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      The end of a court fight with the largest U.S. crypto company would be a big win for an industry that financially backed President Trump.The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said on Friday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had agreed to drop its lawsuit against the company, lifting a legal cloud over the global crypto industry and signaling a broader retreat by federal regulators.Coinbase, in a post on its website and in a regulatory filing, said it had reached an agreement in principle with the S.E.C. to have the lawsuit withdrawn without any financial penalty. If the S.E.C. confirms the proposed settlement, it would be a remarkable reversal by the agency after years of legal battles against crypto firms.The S.E.C. sued Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto company, in 2023 on the grounds that the digital currencies sold on its platform constituted unregistered securities that put consumers at risk of financial harm.Any settlement that results in a dismissal of the lawsuit would require S.E.C. approval. A spokesperson for the S.E.C. declined to comment on Coinbase’s announcement.The lawsuit was the most significant of several that the S.E.C. had filed against major crypto companies, arguing that they were operating outside the law. A victory for the government could have threatened the continued operation of Coinbase, a publicly traded company worth about $65 billion, and decimated the broader crypto market.The dismissal would be biggest victory for the crypto industry since President Trump took office last month, promising to end the Biden administration’s regulatory crackdown on crypto under the previous S.E.C. chair, Gary Gensler. And it illustrates the growing influence in Washington of billionaire technology executives, who wrote enormous checks to support Mr. Trump’s campaign, hoping to secure softer regulation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Media Group Sues Brazilian Judge Weighing Arrest of Jair Bolsonaro

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      The lawsuit came hours after the justice received an indictment of Brazil’s former president, who is an ally of President Trump.President Trump’s media company sued a Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday, accusing him of illegally censoring right-wing voices on social media.The unusual move was made all the more extraordinary by its timing: Just hours earlier, the Brazilian justice had received an indictment that would force him to decide whether to order the arrest of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president and an ally of Mr. Trump. The justice is overseeing multiple criminal investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro.The Trump Media & Technology Group — which is majority owned by Mr. Trump and runs his Truth Social site — sued the Brazilian justice, Alexandre de Moraes, in U.S. federal court in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday morning. Joining as a plaintiff was Rumble, a Florida-based video platform that, like Truth Social, pitches itself as a home for free speech.The lawsuit appeared to represent an astonishing effort by Mr. Trump to pressure a foreign judge as he weighed the fate of a fellow right-wing leader who, like him, was indicted on charges that he tried to overturn his election loss.Mr. Bolsonaro had explicitly called on Mr. Trump to take action against Justice Moraes in an interview with The New York Times last month. At the time, it was not clear how Mr. Trump might be able to influence Brazil’s domestic politics.Supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro clashing with the police as they stormed the Brazilian Supreme Court, Congress and presidential offices in 2023.Eraldo Peres/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alexander Brothers Face More Lawsuits Accusing Them of Sexual Assault

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      Tal Alexander and Oren Alexander, once top real estate brokers, and their brother Alon Alexander are currently in jail awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.Eleven more women have filed lawsuits against one or more of the Alexander brothers, the once high-flying trio who are facing multiple accusations of sexual assault in both civil and criminal court.Tal Alexander and his brothers, Oren Alexander and Alon Alexander, who are twins, are now facing at least 17 lawsuits from women who say they were sexually assaulted by one or more of them and, in some instances, drugged. The latest lawsuits, filed in a bundle in New York on Tuesday, include accusations of assault in Miami, Manhattan and even Moscow.The women’s claims are now part of a growing maze of sexual assault allegations against the brothers who were arrested in December in Miami Beach on federal sex-trafficking charges. Currently jailed in New York, they are scheduled to go to trial early next year.All three men have pleaded not guilty.Jenny Wilson and Richard Klugh, lawyers for Oren Alexander, said in an emailed statement that their client “has never raped anyone and he has never drugged anyone.”“These belated allegations should be seen for what they are — a last-ditch money grab barred by state law. Oren will establish his innocence of this concerted attack driven in every instance by financial objectives,” they said.Lawyers for Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander did not immediately respond to requests to comment on Tuesday’s legal filings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Prison Boss Elevated by Hochul Was Accused of Rape by 2 Former Inmates

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      The attacks occurred years earlier when Bennie Thorpe worked at a state women’s prison, his accusers said. Now he runs a prison where an inmate was fatally beaten by guards.After guards at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York beat a handcuffed prisoner to death late last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul promised immediate reforms to turn the troubled prison around.One of her first directives was to install a new leader, Bennie Thorpe, who had recently run another correctional facility and had experience with security operations and rehabilitation programs. Mr. Thorpe, she said, had “expertise and a fresh perspective on what must be done.”He also had a record of being accused of rape and sexual assault by inmates at one of his former workplaces, records and interviews show.In lawsuits filed in 2023, two women who had been incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County accused Mr. Thorpe of sexual abuse when he was a captain there.One said he summoned her to an office, groped her breasts and raped her in December 2018.Another said he raped her three times in the spring of 2019 in a room near the prison’s medical unit.Neither of the allegations has been previously reported. Both lawsuits are still pending in the New York State Court of Claims.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Refuses to Immediately Reinstate Inspectors General Fired by Trump

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      A federal judge denied eight former inspector generals who were fired by President Trump immediate reinstatement to their jobs on Friday and excoriated their lawyers, saying that their emergency request had wasted the court’s limited time.The ruling by Judge Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court in Washington marked a rare victory for the Trump administration in the barrage of lawsuits that has followed its attempts to slash the federal work force, freeze funding, dismantle agencies and install officials loyal to the president. But it is not necessarily permanent: Judge Reyes criticized the case more on procedural than substantive grounds and allowed it to proceed on a less urgent schedule.Still, in a roughly 10-minute hearing scheduled just hours before it was held via a conference call, she repeatedly berated the plaintiffs’ lawyers for the manner in which they brought the case. She also faulted what she considered to be their weak arguments for immediately reinstating the eight inspectors general, who performed oversight of the Departments of Defense, State, Education, Agriculture, Labor, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services, as well as the Small Business Administration.At one point Judge Reyes, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., went as far as to threaten the plaintiffs with court sanctions if they did not immediately withdraw their emergency request so the case could proceed on a slower timeline. The plaintiffs initially refused, but eventually assented after further criticism from Judge Reyes.President Trump has moved swiftly to purge federal agencies in his first weeks in office, targeting many executive branch officials whose positions are supposed to be protected from being fired without cause. Inspectors general, who monitor their assigned agencies for fraud, waste and other misbehavior, are among those officials who have statutory restrictions on how they can be fired, ones that Congress tightened after Mr. Trump dismissed some inspectors general during his first term.The inspectors general in this case had argued that a judge’s order this week to temporarily reinstate another government watchdog — Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel — while that court challenge progresses had supported their own request to have the inspectors general immediately reinstated while their case proceeds.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Drake’s New Valentine’s Day Album Pivots From Kendrick Lamar Beef

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      The Valentine’s Day release, a collaboration with PartyNextDoor, tries on different styles (acoustic pop, traditional Mexican) while only alluding to Kendrick Lamar.Following a Grammy Awards and a Super Bowl halftime show in which he featured heavily in absentia — at least as a punchline — life goes on for Drake, who released his first new album on Friday since his much-publicized beef with Kendrick Lamar.The album, “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a collaboration with PartyNextDoor, a longtime Drake associate with success as an enigmatic R&B singer, pop songwriter and producer, was released via multiple record companies at a fraught moment: Drake is currently suing his own label, Universal Music Group, or UMG, for defamation and harassment.In a lawsuit filed last month, lawyers for the Toronto rapper, born Aubrey Graham, said that UMG’s release and promotion of Lamar’s diss track and No. 1 smash “Not Like Us,” which accuses Drake of pedophilia, was an example of valuing “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”Still, the release of “Some Sexy Songs 4 U” seemed to be business as usual, as UMG (and its Republic flagship) are credited with the release. The album is also credited to OVO Sound, Drake’s boutique label and the home of PartyNextDoor. OVO Sound is distributed by the Santa Anna Label Group, a subsidiary of UMG’s corporate rival, Sony Music.Representatives for Drake, who is on tour in Australia, and UMG did not respond to requests for comment.“Not Like Us” won five Grammys this month, including song and record of the year. A week later, it was the centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show, in which Lamar rapped “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young” but stopped short of performing the line calling Drake and his crew “certified pedophiles,” replacing the controversial designation with a prerecorded scream.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Funding Freeze Raises a New Question: Is the Government’s Word Good?

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      As the Trump administration continues to withhold billions of dollars for climate and clean energy spending — despite two federal judges ordering the money released — concerns are growing that the United States government could skip out on its legal commitments.Typically, when the federal government spends money through a grant or a loan program approved by Congress, it signs a legally binding agreement, known as an obligation, to deliver the money. Companies, states and other recipients often spend millions of dollars to buy equipment, hire workers, build facilities and more, fully expecting that the federal government will make good on its promise to reimburse the funds.That expectation has been upended by the new administration.Following an order by President Trump, federal agencies, including the Energy Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department, have paused funding for a wide range of obligated grants related to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, sweeping laws that provided billions for climate and energy programs.In just a few weeks, the consequences have begun to be felt nationwide. School districts that planned to use promised federal dollars to buy electric school buses have seen their accounts frozen. Farmers and store owners that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money to replace old refrigeration systems or install solar panels are finding their requests for reimbursements delayed.Two federal judges have explicitly ordered the Trump administration to end its freeze and let the money flow again. On Monday, one of those judges, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court, said the White House was defying his order by withholding funds.Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at the George Washington University Law School, said the administration’s actions had jeopardized the integrity of federal contracting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Extends Halt on Trump Plan to Dismantle U.S.A.I.D.

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      For at least another week, a judge will keep a hold on a directive placing more than 2,000 employees on administrative leave and forcing the return of overseas workers.A federal judge on Thursday moved to extend by one week a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from carrying out plans that would all but dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.The order, which Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would file later Thursday, continues to stall a directive that would put a quarter of its employees on administrative leave while forcing those posted overseas to return to the United States within 30 days.Judge Nichols said he would rule by the end of next week on whether to grant the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction that would indefinitely block key elements of the high-profile Trump administration effort.The plan was driven in large part by Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur tasked with making cuts to the federal budget, to shutter an agency he and Mr. Trump have vilified. The temporary restraining order applies to about 2,700 direct hires of U.S.A.I.D., including hundreds of Foreign Service officers, who would have been put on administrative leave under the directive, which also warned that contractors’ jobs could be terminated.The lawsuit was filed by two unions representing the affected U.S.A.I.D. employees: the American Foreign Service Association, to which aid workers in global missions belong, and the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents other direct hires. They have argued that President Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid for 90 days and subsequent directives to dismantle certain U.S.A.I.D. operations and reduce staff were unconstitutional, and have asked the court to overturn them.Democratic lawmakers, U.S.A.I.D. workers, and the aid organizations that depend on U.S. foreign assistance have decried any moves to unilaterally shut down the agency as unlawful, as its role in the federal government was established by law and Congress funded it, like the rest of the government, through March 14.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More